Fox Searchlight announced plans to create film based on upstate New York haunted house.

Hollywood loves a true story, and we horror fans love haunted houses (both real ones where bad fake Freddy Kruegers attack us in dark, strobe-light flashing mazes and on screen) so combining the two is a no-brainer. Deadline announced that Fox Searchlight gave the green light to a film on an article published in The New Yorker about the first-ever documented haunted house titled Voices Through The Trumpet. The author of the article, Carl Carmer, was a journalist who focused on folklore and myths who died in 1976.

Deadline says:

JT Petty has been set to write, and Alison Greenspan is producing with Conde Nast Entertainment’s Dawn Ostroff and Jeremy Steckler. Denise DiNovi will be executive producer.

Conde Nast Entertainment was set up partly to cull through titles in the libraries of its many magazines, but you rarely see anybody going this far back in the archives to find movie material. Carmer, a journalist and author who wrote about myths and folklore, died in 1976.

But the New Yorker piece he got published in 1936 has a chance to live on. It takes place in the mid-1800s, the first haunted house documented in upstate New York. Two young girls, the Fox sisters, were at the center of the haunting. They remained in touch with a spirit that haunted them as they grew up. When they reached adulthood, both girls disavowed the haunting, then promptly died mysteriously. Years later, Carmer ventured back to the haunted house and the spiritualist community that sprung up around it to try to figure out what really happened, and is met with terrifying answers.

The original article can be found here (note, you must be a subscriber to view it in its entirety). Tell us, are you excited for the latest “based on a true story” haunted house adaptation?

About The Author

My cousin forced me to watch Child’s Play when I was around five years old, and I’ve loved horror movies ever since. I’ll watch anything (the gorier the better) but faint at the sight of blood in real life. Let’s be internet friends -- follow me on Twitter @mrstschinkel.